Pretty much this. Although we do like to see mods being active in the forum, with the fact that the boards are slower, it is more difficult to say, 'hey, you don't have X amount of admin actions in a month'. Mods should be participating in the MS, Comms and their forums.

Posting frequency is also very much relative to the forum. And there have been quite a few mods who did (or are doing) their job quite well without ever having to ban anyone, and had that go on for years.

How many mods do we really need to cover all the boards now, can we also get help from the RSAs?

Thank you for that wonderful, insightful gem that no one has over the last 13 years ever, ever suggested or considered. Who would have thought that one way to get coverage for some forums would be to see if some of the people that already have moderator abilities would be able to do so? It's so mind-bogglingly simple that it is so astounding that this has not been thought of ever before this.

Surprisingly enough, the members of the MS actually do talk to each other. In general it is known if someone is not posting as much for whatever reason and it is noticable what activity mods are taking (there are even little audit logs that managers can see so everyone knows who is doing what). Kate and I were talking for months about my activity and posting levels before I stepped down. And frankly, the number of posts and admin actions one has are not a direct indicator of their actual activity. Just because some people might have twice the number of 'admin actions' it doesn't mean they are actually contributing more to the boards than any other mod. It's all about context, which in this case relates to the forum and individual moderator and their style.

If you have an issue with a moderator, talk to the admins. But just because you think they aren't active doesn't mean there isn't already a known issue in their real life (you know, that thing that the rest of us actually have) which might be impacting on their ability to get onto the forums and this is known and being catered for.

Oh, and in case the point was missed at the start behind the sarcasm, RSAs have had dual roles ever since Silmarillion was promoted to being a PSA mod as well as Oceania RSA. In 2001.